1. Field of The Invention
This invention relates to amplifying a signal and, more particularly, to a system and method which enables efficient and/or linear amplification of a signal.
2. Description of Related Art
An ideal power amplifier amplifies an input signal with no waveshape alteration. The ideal power amplifier is therefore characterized as having a transfer function (input signal vs. output signal) which is linear with no transfer function discontinuities. In practice, a power amplifier, however, has a transfer function with nonlinear and "linear" regions. Whether the power amplifier is operating in a linear or nonlinear region depends on the amplitude of the input signal. For the power amplifier to achieve as near to linear operation as possible, the power amplifier is designed to operate within its linear region given the range of possible input signal amplitudes. If the input signal has an amplitude which causes the power amplifier to operate outside the linear region, the power amplifier introduces nonlinear components or distortion to the signal. When the input signal possesses peak amplitudes which cause the amplifier to saturate (no appreciable increase in output amplitude with an increase in input amplitude) or to shut-off (no appreciable decrease in output amplitude with a decrease in input amplitude), the amplifer is being overdriven, and the output signal is clipped or severely distorted in a nonlinear fashion. Generally, an amplifier is characterized as having a clipping threshold, and input signals having amplitudes beyond the clipping threshold are clipped at the amplifier output. In addition to distorting the signal, the clipping or nonlinear distortion of the input signal, generates spectral regrowth or adjacent channel power (ACP) that can interfere with an adjacent frequency.
In wireless communications systems, high power amplification of signals for transmission are commonly encountered with very large peak to average power ratios (PAR). For example, in a time division multiple access (TDMA) system, when multiple carrier signals are combined for amplification with a power amplifier, the resulting PAR is about 9-10 dB for a large number of carriers. In a code division multiple access (CDMA) system, a single loaded 1.25 Mhz wide carrier can have a PAR of 11.3 dB. These signals have to be amplified fairly linearly to avoid generating ACP.
Unfortunately, efficiency of the base station amplifier is inversely related to its linearity. To achieve a high degree of linearity, the amplifiers are biased to operate in the class A or "slight" class AB (meaning class AB operation that is closer to class A than to class B). Maximum AC to DC efficiency achievable for class A operation is 50%, whereas that of a class AB amplifier is between 50 and 78.5% (the latter representing the maximum efficiency of a class B amplifier). The closer the particular class AB operation is to class A, the lower the maximum efficiency. For amplifiers employing field effect transistors, the class of operation is set in accordance with the gate voltage applied, which controls the quiescent (idle) drain current. For class A operation, the gate voltage is set so that the idle drain current is approximately in the middle of the range between cutoff and saturation. Class B amplifiers are biased near or at cutoff, resulting in a rectified drain current waveform. Class AB amplifiers are biased in between the bias points of classes A and B. Class C amplifiers are biased below cutoff. As such, class C amplifiers do not dissipate energy when the amplitude of the input signal is below a certain level.
Typically, strict linearity requirements in modem wireless communication systems dictate the use of the relatively inefficient class A or slight class AB modes. As a result, significant DC power is dissipated by the amplifiers, thereby generating heat which must be controlled to avoid degrading amplifier performance and reliability. Hence, the use of elaborate heat sinks and fans become a necessary by-product of the high linearity system. Naturally, these measures add to the cost, size and weight of the base station equipment. As the number of wireless communications users continues to grow, so do the number of base stations and the need to keep them small, light and inexpensive. Thus, a great deal of research has focused on the quest to improve amplifier efficiency in these and other systems.
Various linearization methods are used to enable the use of more cost-effective and more power efficient amplifiers while maintaining an acceptable level of linearity. Feed-forward correction is routinely deployed in modem amplifiers to improve the linearity of the main amplifier with various input patterns. The essence of the feed-forward correction is to isolate the distortion generated by the main amplifier on a feed forward path. The distortion is provided to a correction amplifier on the feed forward path which amplifies the distortion. The distortion on the feed forward path is combined with the distortion on the main signal path to cancel the distortion on the main signal path. Another linearization technique use pre-distortion. Pre-distortion techniques distort the input signal prior to amplification by taking into account the transfer function characteristics for the amplifier. As such, the desired amplified signal is achieved from the pre-distorted input signal. These techniques help to improve the efficiency of the amplifier while maintaining linearity, but to be able to handle the large peaks of a signal, the amplifiers still operate inefficiently. Other linearization techniques are possible. For example, baseband processing techniques, such as peak clipping, reduce the peak to average power ratio (PAR) of the signal but tend to degrade the signal. The amount of PAR reduction is limited by the amount of tolerable degradation. Another technique uses the input signal envelope to dynamically adjust the amplifier bias such that a high bias is only applied when a large peak is encountered. Due to practical difficulties, actual realization of this technique have not been seen.
Due to the potential for high peak powers, CDMA, TDMA and frequency division multiple access (FDMA) base stations typically use radio frequency (RF) amplifiers operating in class AB mode and biased with a high current to be able to handle those peak powers. The efficiency of these amplifiers is typically less than 10%. This low efficiency leads to higher power consumption, lower overall reliability and higher operating temperatures. Accordingly, there is a need for a more efficient power amplifier architecture which can amplify signals having potentially high peak powers in a linear fashion.